


Lie Hidden

by Sineala



Category: Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Gen, Multi, OT3, Secrets, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-13
Updated: 2011-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 17:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uncle Aquila is good at keeping secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie Hidden

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at writing Eagle bookverse. Summary courtesy of Carmarthen. Written for Round 1 of the Fanmedia Challenge on ninth_eagle.

He was in mind of the Eagles again.

It was curious, Aquila thought as he admired the last few lines he had written, that such reminiscences were never upon him in good weather, for surely he had soldiered in good weather as often as bad. A bright day, a clear sky, the slightest hint of a breeze -- he had marched across Britannia, his fork on his back, in weather such as that. But, no, all it took was a late-spring storm and his nephew running in smelling like wet wool, and hours of miserable ditch-digging were all brought back to him.

There came a whooping from the atrium, more than one voice, and he sighed and pushed the manuscript away.

"Ho, Procyon," he told the hound. "Let's see what they're up to, eh?"

Procyon gave him a dutiful wag and followed as he made his way down the stairs. He leaned on the cold wall for support more than he used to, these days.

"Ah, we're all getting old, boy."

The hound wagged again.

And in truth he felt like a sentry on his rounds again, heading down not the crude, long stone corridors of a fort but rather the neat walls of his own home. But he felt as though at any instant he might happen along something strange, something unusual, perhaps something he would not have wished to know.

Judging by the ever-louder voices laughing in the atrium, it was his nephew with Esca and Cottia, gone for a run in the rain, or perhaps the rain had come to them. He shook his head, accusing his nephew a little -- all those times when they had thought Marcus would never gain his strength back, when he first came, and again when he had arrived with the Eagle, and here he was treating his leg again as if it would never give out?

The boy was more like his father than he knew.

And perhaps it was a little improper, to let them be alone, but, well, the wedding would be soon enough, and it was not like they were truly alone, with Esca there.

Through the archway he saw Marcus and Esca, dripping wet and laughing, their arms around each other, sprawled across one of the couches, seemingly heedless of the mess. Next to them Cottia stood and was grinning and grinning. None of the three took any notice of him.

They were happy, he thought, and then, suddenly: they were lying to themselves.

Esca, now, he was holding himself quite deliberately, a too-careful ease that came with practice, an ease that said he was a free man, not a slave, and certainly never a slave of the man next to him.

Cottia, for all her Iceni fierceness, strong as Boudicca... was soon to marry a Roman. A far cry from sacking Camulodunum, indeed.

And Marcus-- his mind shied away from it. He did not want to think about what his nephew might be hiding. After them stripping the military from him and giving him an honorable retirement, he deserved an illusion to cling to.

But the way the three looked at each other, ah, that, the three of them must have known about, for they were none of them stupid. Marcus might have thought him old, past such things, but he saw enough that he would not be surprised if Cottia's first babe had Esca's eyes or his stocky build.

He was certain they would think themselves clever, would think that no one would guess, but they would not keep that from him. He knew them too well, and Marcus had never been able to spin a lie that held in the telling of it.

Still, if it made them happy, there was nothing wrong in it.

He smiled to himself a little and continued, an old soldier on his rounds. The three never saw him.

He could keep secrets. He had an Eagle under the tiles of this very house, after all; what was one more thing to hide?


End file.
